Sift

Kids, healthy food, and Bryant Terry — Online videos

2012-02-10T09:38:05Z

Yeah, you know the kids are all right. Check ‘em out, doing online video reports on toxins in potatoes and coming up with healthy snack ideas for the USDA. (The parents are helping out, too, of course, even urging the USDA to get its kid-produced PSAs out there more.)

Meanwhile, healthy-eating advocate Bryant Terry has a new online TV show, "Urban Organic." As its website says, the show “features cutting-edge chefs, urban farmers, and social innovators who are bringing urban agriculture to neighborhoods in America that need them most.”

The first segment features aquaponics deep in the heart of Oakland, California; the second tours the backyard farm of Novella Carpenter. There’s also a site blog and resource guides to accompany each episode. Watch ‘em!

from Sift

Porcine problems — A new video on animal rights

2012-02-09T08:28:45Z

As the Humane Society recently reported, the latest round of undercover video shot at factory farms focuses on gestation crates for pigs. The video, of course, is grisly and shocking — and, as Tom Philpott noted on Mother Jones, is all the more depressing for being comparatively banal in the annals of factory farming:

What we have here is the everyday reality of pigs’ lives on a factory farm, without regulations flouted or spectacular violence committed. It is abuse routinized and regimented, honed into a profitable business model.

Dot Earth blogger Andrew C. Revkin added that the practice of cramming pregnant sows into confining gestation crates (among other repellent practices documented in the video) has been banned in eight states, and that some retailers and fast-food outlets are trying to move away from meat produced under such conditions.

But, as Philpott commented, none of the documented practices are illegal in Oklahoma, where they were filmed. He also called out the USDA for showing “zero interest in educating the public about the conditions under which their meat is raised — much less in improving those conditions.”

from Sift

Upending conventional dietary wisdom — Wavering on vegetarianism, and a new book on obesity

2012-02-10T10:23:37Z

In a recent Boston Globe article, several longtime vegetarians explained their various reasons for abandoning strict vegetarianism in favor of flexitarianism. Some missed the taste and texture of meat, or felt that they were simply missing out; others didn’t like feeling dependent on soy-based substitutes. Whatever the reason, many said they hadn’t gone back to eating the whole hog; they were still trying to figure it out.

Which is what a new book about our current obesity epidemic attempts to do. Julie Guthman’s Weighing In: Obesity, Food Justice, and the Limits of Capitalism challenges the simplistic “eat less, exercise more” advice given to the overweight. As Guthman writes, socioeconomics and the environment play significant roles in fostering obesity:

Studies have shown that fat people are subject to discrimination in education, job placement, wages, and health care. Thinness doesn’t guarantee high status, but obesity pretty much guarantees low status. So maybe low economic status is as much a consequence of obesity as a cause.

Sift

Kids, healthy food, and Bryant Terry — Online videos

Porcine problems — A new video on animal rights

Upending conventional dietary wisdom — Wavering on vegetarianism, and a new book on obesity

Finding food deserts and food organizations — An online locator and a chart of faves

Food news — Links that we clicked

Home-grown goodies — The artisanal food-business trend

The problem with protein — How much is too much?

The label masters — Are you getting what you think you're getting?

Russ Parsons and his cookbook collection — The rare and the signed

Pesticides and honey bees — A study shows just how bad it can get for bees

The Costco universe — The megaretailer, by the numbers

Oily aftermath — Oil spills mean fish kills

The Walmart warning — Big isn't necessarily better

GMOs and your health — The unknown consequences of genetically modified foods

Barry Estabrook's latest — Covering feedlots, sea urchins, and dioxins

The Paula Deen problem — Her diabetes diagnosis frustrates health advocates

Juvenile eating habits — Successes and failures

Slow Food in crisis — What are its goals these days?

The food-stamp debate — What to do with the massive SNAP program?

Vegetarian trends — We're eating less meat — in certain places

Flavor pairings — Need inspiration? Check the list

Local food production — Southern farmers and Northwestern trappers

The sharing economy — Save money, build community, and get some eggs online

Farm rules — Child labor, ag gags, and antibiotics

When organic ain't — Exceptions to the rules

Fast-food ick — Creepy beef and sneaky ads

The fat trap — Why it's so hard to keep off excess weight

Year-end trends — The good and the bad for food in 2011

Animals and home cooking — New takes on farm to fork

Eco-labels on fish — Sustainable farming is tricky

Michael Pollan, professor — Watch his class online

Better with butter — Unless you're out, of course

Banning the bag — Seattle joins other cities in saying no to plastic

The politics of real food — Can it be cheap? Should it?

Getting the word out — Supporting food-politics journalism

Farm politics — Energy, activism, and the Farm Bill

Monsanto's GM corn — It's no longer resistant to insects

A history of food processing — And why it may be the next big nutritional concern

Sugar in your cereal — Commercial cereals, ranked from best to worst

Shopping lists galore — Collecting holiday-book roundups

Fair-trade restaurants — A guide to joints that treat their employees decently

Common foods to avoid — The not-so-magnificent seven

Farm improvements — School lunch, urban farmers, and going organic

No more secrets — What's next for the Farm Bill?

The school-lunch system — A nice loop of profit and junk

Poisoned apples — Is there arsenic in your fruit juice?

Food-safety scares — Eggs, cans, and history

Gluten-free goes mainstream — At least in the packaged-food world